Crowley, Gates meeting more than just a beer

Thursday

Jul 30, 2009 at 12:01 AMJul 30, 2009 at 12:59 PM

You can’t solve a problem if you don’t discuss it.

That’s why some say that despite all the accusations and emotions hindering the resolution of the Henry Louis Gates Jr. imbroglio, there is opportunity for racial progress in President Barack Obama’s “teachable moment” sitdown with Gates and Sgt. James Crowley.

“If nothing else, it’s an important national symbol of a discussion that needs to be held,” said Clarence Jones, once a confidant of Martin Luther King Jr. and author of “What Would Martin Say?”

“If it’s just regarded as the president bringing two guys together to clear the air, then it’s meaningless,” Jones said. “But if it’s really intended to say in effect to the country, ‘Look, the difficulties that occurred here are really emblematic of deeper issues,’ it can work.”

Beyond the symbolic, today’s meeting at 5 p.m. Missouri time is an opportunity for the white cop, the black Harvard scholar and the biracial president “to say that they’re wrong when they are wrong, to learn from one another’s perspective as opposed to defending their own perspective,” said Tali Hairston, director of the John Perkins Center for Reconciliation, Leadership Training and Community Development at Seattle Pacific University.

Harvard Law School Professor Charles Ogletree, an attorney for Gates, said they hoped to settle the dispute and “create a springboard for a larger discussion about how law enforcement interacts with minority communities and how we can figure out a way to both enforce the law but also protect civil liberties and civil rights.”

Obama stabbed a raw nerve when he said Crowley acted “stupidly” in arresting Gates at his own home. Gates was charged with disorderly conduct for protesting Crowley’s actions during a burglary investigation; the charge was dropped.

Obama quickly realized his mistake and sought to calm a national outburst of anger and avoid political repercussions. He praised Crowley, said both men had overreacted and invited them to share a beer at the White House.

Now, after mostly avoiding race issues, Obama might have stumbled into a role he was destined to play. “Inadvertently, he may be the teacher,” said Dorothy Miller of the Race and Reconciliation Dialogue Group at the Saint Paul Cathedral in Pittsburgh. “He may end up the teacher even though he precipitated that remark” and has avoided race, Miller said.

Others say that for the Gates affair to create real change, the leadership has to come from the ground up. “If we want this true racial reconciliation, and it’s good that President Obama is making the first step to show others, now you start within your own community,” said Stacey LaCompte, executive director of the Wakpa Sica Reconciliation Place in South Dakota, which works to improve race relations for the Sioux Nation.